Understanding Socialists

The arc of Bernie Sanders’ presidential candidacy coincided with an effort to rehabilitate the word “socialism.” It was somewhat successful, in that, nowadays, it’s not nearly as off-putting a term as “fascism” or “communism,” its ideological brothers. Moreso, its definition has been fuzzed up, both with the “democratic socialism” farce and with the reduced fidelity to its core premise of government ownership of the means of production. Someone recently used the phrase “small-s socialism” to speak to the mindset and philosophy of many of today’s big-government advocates, especially the younger ones.

With the fuzzing-up of the term, critique becomes a bit more complicated. After all, if you can’t agree on what a word means, it’s not that easy to embrace or reject it. A recent news story, however, cuts through that (deliberate?) fog and gets to the core of the matter.

Participants in a year-long study who doubted the scientific consensus on the issue “opposed policy solutions,” but at the same time, they “were most likely to report engaging in individual-level, pro-environmental behaviors.”

Conversely, those who expressed the greatest belief in, and concern about, the warming environment “were most supportive of government climate policies, but least likely to report individual-level actions.”

While the referenced article averred that this was a dissonance or disconnect, it is quite understandable and predictable – if you understand the difference between those who are skeptical of big government and those who embrace it. That is, non-statists vs statists. Or, more colloquially, those who embrace small-s socialism and those who reject it.

Playwright-turned-conservative David Mamet defined socialism as “the abdication of responsibility.” If we apply this definition to the aforementioned study, everything makes sense. Not wanting the government to do something isn’t the same as not wanting to do something. That’s a lesson that big government types never want to learn or understand. Conversely, big government types often feel that, if they vote for government to address a problem, they’ve done all they need to do, personally. If government has to impose rules on them to alter their behavior, so be it, but they’re not likely, as the study demonstrates, to alter their behavior on their own without external mandates.

This coincides with a common expectation from these small-s socialists. Karl Marx’s dogma “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” is often viewed as “From others according to their ability, to me according to my needs.” Talk to many small-s socialists, and you’ll find them to expect to be on the “benefiting” side of forced redistribution and forced behavioral modification. Whether it be big stuff like socialized medicine and global warming, or small stuff like soda and tobacco taxes, it always seems to be about making others behave differently, and if the rules end up imposing on them as well, at least everyone’s behavior is changed. It’s also why we don’t see those who want taxes and tax rates increased volunteering extra money out of their own pockets come tax time. If they’re to pay extra, everyone else should as well. Socialists, both small-s and big-S, are always the hammer, never the nail.

And, it’s exemplified in attitudes towards charity. While some studies have shown that non-liberals tend to be more charitable than liberals (especially when parsed by income level i.e. poor/working class conservatives tend to be a lot more charitable than poor/working class liberals), the real dissonance lies in the perception of how the poor get helped. Some believe that voting for big, redistributionist government is them being charitable and caring. It is not. Giving someone else’s money is not charity. Giving your money/time/effort is. Christianity teaches that we should help the poor, not that we should demand force be used to make others help the poor.

We can also understand the disconnect in mind set from a moralistic perspective. Some people behave in a moral fashion because it’s the right thing to do. Others behave in a moral fashion because of an external reward/punishment system (whether it be government laws and regulations or religious dogma). Other others only worry about whether others behave in a moral fashion, and seek to use the coercive power of the state to ensure it. Who’s the most moral, and who’s the least moral? He who does the right thing just because it’s the right thing, he who does so via soft coercion, or he who only cares about forcing others to behave in a way he thinks is moral?

So, to truly understand socialists, forget about the particulars of socialism vs democratic socialism vs fascism vs communism, and dismiss word-smithing and other forms of dissembling and sophistry that seek to excuse the horrors and body count of its many iterations in favor of some nebulous “good” socialism. Instead focus on the individual-vs-collective approach to, well, everything. Therein lies the real truth. Socialism is, indeed, the abdication of responsibility, and the embodiment of lazy selfishness.

I am twice-retired, a former rocket engineer and a former small business owner. At the very least, it makes for interesting party conversation. I'm also a life-long libertarian, I engage in an expanse of entertainments, and I squabble for sport.

Nowadays, I spend a good bit of my time arguing politics and editing this website.

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“He who does the right thing just because it’s the right thing, he who does so via soft coercion, or he who only cares about forcing others to behave in a way he thinks is moral?”

It is not clear how a person decides what is the “right thing” when choosing to do the right thing because it is the right thing. It just means that a person is operating on a reflex but does not remember how that reflex came into existence.

Generally speaking everything I do is right, but your judgment may differ, because your sense of what is right was calibrated to a different standard. That standard in past years was largely religious filtered through several national cultures on the way to the United States.

We explore two conflicting value systems, each with merit, in Star Trek: The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Well, maybe. Then we learn that the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many. That seems a bit unlikely.

Either of these proposes that some sort of universal scale exists to perform the weighing!

Both standards are too simple to be useful. The needs of the one MIGHT outweigh the needs of some, IF the “one” has a skill that benefits the many, and without that skill, the many will suffer. But you see, in that analysis, it is still the needs of the many and the “one” is simply a proxy for the “many”.

The needs of the many don’t outweigh the needs of the one; unless of course you simply mean that 100 people weigh more than one person; or that 100 armed people can take what they want from one armed person. BUT it may be that the situation is not equal; and one armed person might outweigh 100 that are not armed.

It may be that there is no universal judge weighing anything! In that case, you do what you are able and choose to do; and everyone else does what they can do and choose to do.

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I believe, with evidence, that there is a genetic/evolutionary hard-wiring towards behaviors we consider “moral.” That includes “do not murder,” “do not steal,” and “do not lie.” It’s no coincidence that such appear in every successful religion and in every successful culture. I don’t believe we are blank slates, I do believe that, even raised in a vacuum, we are genetically predisposed to behaving the right way.

One example offered is this: Imagine you see a child about to fall into a well. What is your *instant* reaction? To rescue it, no? That’s genetic hard-wiring, and only mentally defective sociopaths don’t have it.

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While I agree with your thinking (that much of morality is “hard wired”), it is a leap of faith to suppose everyone is hard wired the same way, or that any particular way is best or better.

The bird called Cuckoo believes that the best way is for some other bird to raise its offspring. Most of those other birds seem to disagree. They aren’t really choosing; they are hard-wired, as you say.

I have studied for some years a concept I call “Latitude makes Attitude”, which refers to regional factors that bend this hard-wiring one way or another.

In Norway or Iceland there’s an awareness of reciprocity; I might need your assistance some day. Also, the consequence of NOT rendering assistance can be serious, possibly fatal for the person you chose not to aid. On some lonely road on an icy cold day someone has a flat tire, you put aside your animosity and prejudices and HELP. In your favor is knowing that the nation is culturally homogenous and non-assisters and frauds were “naturally selected” out of the gene pool long ago.

But now change the venue; it’s the north shore of Oahu and someone seems to be stranded on the side of the road. He’s in no particular danger but YOU are if you stop. Hawaii even has fake police; a problem so serious that citizens are authorized to NOT STOP when flashed by what looks like an unmarked police car, but drive to the nearest police station or precinct (like you know where that is).

Cuckoos, in other words, inhabit the temperate parts of the world where reciprocity is not required or beneficial.

Natural Enemies:

The natural enemy of a human, in northern regions, is nature itself (climate mostly). Humans work together to survive this enemy.

The natural enemy of a human, in equatorial regions, is other humans. Humans don’t work together because they ARE the enemy.

When I was stationed in Hawaii the problem of fake police was serious enough that citizens were permitted to ignore the flashing lights and proceed to the nearest police station. Stopping to help someone on the side of the road is extremely dangerous. They aren’t in any immediate danger, YOU are.

When I was stationed in Alaska I helped anyone that seemed to be needing it. There is still some danger, but the “Cuckoos” among humans tend to avoid the hardships of living in Alaska or Iceland.

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There’s obviously variation in individuals, there’s obviously the fact that people can override their natural instincts (i.e. reason over blind impulse), and there’s obviously the eternal problem of “subversion from within” that dooms any presumption of pure altruism. But, as a source for what we consider basic morality, the hard-wiring is as good or better an explanation as any.

Besides, the cuckoo is its own species. There are not different, competing species of humans.